kkleiner writes: "A groundbreaking change has struck academia, and its reverberations may be felt for years to come. One of Stanford’s first full courses to ever be openly made available online has gone viral. In a matter of weeks it has signed up more than 100,000 students from around the world! Even during the last several hours, another 5000 joined! As news of the course continues to spread, the ultimate size of the class could reach greater epic proportions – we could easily see interest skyrocket to 200,000 or even 300,000 or more. Classes of 1 million or tens of millions may be in our future."

I've already got the textbook, but I'll be good and wait before reading too far ahead... I could probably have completed my A-Level Computing (IRL, btw) in 6 months (or less, trying not to be cocky!) if not for the "lowest common denominator" attitude here in the UK. It took 2 years instead, and was modular (AS Level 1st year and A2 Level 2nd year, you know the drill).